United States District Court, N.D. Mississippi, Aberdeen Division
ORDER DENYING SUMMARY JUDGMENT
NEAL
B. BIGGERS, JR. UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Presently
before the court is the defendant39;s motion for summary
judgment. Upon due consideration of the motion, response,
exhibits, and applicable authority, the court is ready to
rule.
The
plaintiff, Charles “Randy” Reich, brings this
action against his former employer, Mueller Copper Tube
Company, Inc. (“Mueller”), asserting that his
employment was terminated in violation of the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act (“the ADEA”) and
the Americans with Disabilities Act (“the ADA”).
Mueller, a company which produces copper tubing and has
operated a facility in Fulton, Mississippi, for approximately
forty-six years, hired Reich in 1971. Reich worked in the
shipping department for approximately the last twenty years.
His duties included operating a crane to load trailers,
assisting others in loading trailers, and staging loads for
shipping.
In 1996
Reich suffered from a heart condition which required stents
to be placed in his heart. He alleges that after the
procedure he suffered from severe anxiety, including panic
attacks, and depression. The condition caused Reich to take
two separate six-month periods of FMLA qualifying medical
leave during 1998 and 1999. Reich took FMLA leave again in
2013 to have another surgical procedure performed on his
heart.
On July
17, 2014, Ronnie Scott, a superintendent at Mueller,
approached Reich and, according to the plaintiff,
intentionally provoked him and gave him orders that
conflicted with instructions from Reich39;s own supervisor,
Billy Thompson. During the exchange, Reich picked up a 1x4
board, allegedly because he felt threatened by Scott. Reich
asserts that he did not raise the board in a threatening
manner, though the defendant asserts that he did. Reich then
dropped the board without incident. The following day,
Mueller human resources manager, Travis Fisher, contacted
Reich and advised him that he was fired for violating
“Rule 26, ” which pertains to threatening or
intimidating fellow employees or a supervisor. Mike Baum, the
plant manager of the Fulton plant since 2011, made the firing
decision. The plaintiff, who was sixty-two at the time of his
termination, was replaced by Joey Loden, who was in his early
to mid fifties.
The
defendant asserts that “any employee who threatens
physical harm [in violation of Rule 26] where the employee
actually strikes someone, threatens to strike someone, pulls
out a knife, or picks up any kind of weapon is terminated
every time . . . .” [Doc. 39, p. 8] The defendant then
provides three examples of such incidents. The plaintiff
asserts, however, that a younger employee, Tom Sharpe, age
forty-eight, threatened a supervisor the previous week and
was not fired and only received a verbal warning. The
defendant makes a distinction between Sharpe39;s incident
and the plaintiff39;s which the court finds tenuous, at
best. Sharpe admittedly threw a crane conductor box on the
ground in anger during an altercation with his supervisor,
but the defendant contends that he threw the box away from
the direction of the supervisor and walked away. Mueller
asserts that Sharpe39;s incident “vastly differs from
the conduct of Plaintiff, who refused a directive and then
picked up a 1x4 board and approached the supervisor.”
[Doc. 49, p. 20');">p. 20] Mueller asserts, “It is undisputed
that Mr. Sharp [sic] did not threaten a supervisor....”
[Id.] Oddly, within the same paragraph of its
rebuttal brief, however, Mueller states, “Mr. Sharp
[sic] received a written verbal warning for his conduct of
throwing a conductor box, which was abuse of property and
threatening, intimidating a supervisor.” [Id.]
Further, Sharpe39;s “Disciplinary Action Form”
specifically lists Rule 26 “Threaten and Intimidate
fellow employees or Supervisor” as a reason for the
verbal warning. [Doc. 43-19] Additionally, the plaintiff has
directed the court to sufficient evidence of various other
altercations where younger employees threatened supervisors
or fellow employees and were not fired. Some of this evidence
is, as the defendant contends, inadmissible hearsay, but not
all of it; and the court finds that material questions of
fact exist in this regard, and summary judgment is
inappropriate.
The
plaintiff has also submitted evidence - though again, some of
it is inadmissible hearsay - indicating that certain
administrative employees at Mueller have expressed desires to
terminate employees solely because of their age. The
plaintiff submitted the affidavit of his son, Christopher
Charles Reich, who was employed as a bench line supervisor at
Mueller from August 2013 until March 2015. After offering a
list of alleged incidents illustrating his point, Christopher
Reich stated that age discrimination “was part of the
culture at Mueller.” [Doc. 43-18, p. 2]
The
plaintiff has directed the court to sufficient evidence
showing that he may be able to establish a prima facie case
of both ADEA and ADA discrimination. The court finds that the
plaintiff has presented genuine issues of material fact
including, but not limited to, whether the defendant39;s
proffered reasons for firing Reich are pretext for
discrimination, that is, whether Reich was terminated because
of his alleged violation of Rule 26 or because of his age
and/or alleged disability, whether Reich was a qualified
individual with a disability as defined by the ADA, and
whether the plaintiff actually threatened Ronnie Scott.
Because
the court finds the existence of genuine issues of material
fact in this case, summary judgment is inappropriate, and the
defendant's motion should be denied. It is, therefore,
ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the
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